Red hair’s the colour of the moment’

The Times reporter Alice Thomson has a fringe cut into her hair by hairdresser Jonathon Long at Lockonego hair salon in London, March 24th 2010.
Credit: Susannah Ireland / The TimesSusannah Ireland

When a redhead walks into the salon, I think “fabulous”. There are some hairdressers who are scared of it, but not us. The trouble is that there are so many variants. Your spectrum of colours is huge — from ashy red, burgundy, berry, copper to strong red — which can make it hard to give a redhead the exact hair colour they want.

I’d say 80 per cent of our clients have had bad experiences, and that’s because red hair is really an intense gold with an orange hue, which many technicians don’t understand. They just dye it a live, bright orange and, of course, the clients aren’t happy.

The classic from a client used to be: “I want to go brunette, I don’t want…